


I Am He Is Me

by Kantayra



Category: Ayatsuri Sakon | Puppet Master Sakon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A puppeteer and his puppet converse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am He Is Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the May 4 prompt: _Ayatsuri Sakon, Sakon/Ukon: multiple personalities - Sometimes, Sakon wonders if Ukon isn't the one in control._

“Who are you?” asked the puppeteer.

“I am you,” answered the puppet.

“And how do you come to be?”

“I come to be through the breath on your lips and the blood coursing through your hands.”

“And who made you?”

“I was crafted by others,” answered the puppet, “but it is you who made me _me_.”

“Do you, then, live?” asked the puppeteer.

“I live as you live, and I die as you cease to live through me.”

“And,” asked the puppeteer at long last, “why do you keep making me talk in this stupid, stilted language? Honestly, this is why you can’t talk to girls!”

The puppet blushed. “Ukon! Not in front of grandfather!”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” the puppeteer accused, hands on his hips impatiently. “You’re the human, and _you’re_ the puppet!”

“I am not crazy!” the puppet insisted. “Can’t you behave yourself for five minutes?”

The puppeteer got right up in his face and pointed one wooden finger squarely at his forehead. “You’re arguing with yourself! Can’t get crazier than that.”

“I’m arguing with you,” the puppet said simply. “Unless you’re arguing that you don’t exist. And, in that case, wouldn’t that make _you_ crazy, too?”

The puppeteer sulked, arms crossed over his chest.

The tip of the puppet’s lips twitched ever so slightly at his master’s frustration.

Across the room, the puppet’s grandfather managed to maintain his stoic expression, but there was the slightest glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, grandfather.” Sakon retracted his hand, and Ukon’s eyes closed and his limbs went lifeless. Yet, for all that, it was Sakon who seemed drained of life, silent and withdrawn as he always had been from the day he was born. “I’ll do better next time.”

Sakon’s grandfather laid an indulgent hand on Sakon’s head and ruffled his hair, in complete contrast to the formality of the situation. Then, as just as fair, he ruffled Ukon’s hair, too.

“I think,” Sakon’s grandfather said slowly to the boy who had only found his puppet’s words for the first time the day before but had already succeeded in sequestering his very _self_ into those limbs of wood, “that some day you shall make a fine puppetmaster.”

Sakon gulped and bowed. “Thank you, grandfather. I’ll work my hardest.” And then looked startled to realize that, while he hadn’t been looking, he’d instinctually brought Ukon back to life.

“Gah! Why’d you have to mess my hair up, old man?” Ukon tried to nudge his red locks back into place. “You’re as hopeless as _this_ guy.” He pointed a rude thumb in Sakon’s direction.

Sakon’s face went red from embarrassment.

And, just once, Sakon’s grandfather laughed. “A fine puppetmaster, indeed,” he winked at Ukon. “I’m just not sure which one of you it will be.”

Which, in the end, was the greatest compliment he had ever offered.


End file.
